[OpenWrt-Devel] Changeset 48456

[Arjen de Korte]

Citeren Chris Marchesi <chrism at vancluevertech.com>:

> I noticed changeset 48456, which reverts 48276, which I put in to get the
> full 128MB flash on a WNDR3700v4.

Yup, this badly breaks the WNDR4300, which is almost the same  
hardware, but apparently has different boot code in it.

> Looks like the issue was the fact that it changed the location of
> caldata_backup.

Not necessarily the location of the caldata_backup. After reverting  
the commit (and with the caldata_backup still containing nonsense),  
the WNDR4300 boots normally. So it looks like it is not the contents  
of caldata_backup that cause this, but the fact that it is in a  
different location.

> I had a few questions about this:
>
> 1) I did a bit more research and it looks like caldata is actually device
> firmware data that is not touched by firmware updates/etc, is that the same
> for caldata_backup, ie: it was added there by the manufacturer?

Yes. As far as I know, this stores some device specific settings like  
MAC addresses and such. You can clearly see the MAC addresses of the  
wlan-0 and wlan-1 for instance by looking at the contents with a hex  
file viewer. The caldata and caldata_backup partitions should contain  
the same info.

> 2) I'd imagine that if this is the case, then I should stop using this MTD
> layout ASAP as well. What's the easiest way to restore the state of
> caldata_backup after rolling back?

By executing the following two commands in a shell on the device:

# dd if=/dev/mtd2 of=/tmp/caldata.bin

This command writes 512 blocks of data from the (hopefully pristine)  
caldata partition to a backup file.

# mtd -e caldata_backup write /tmp/caldata.bin caldata_backup

The second command will first erase the caldata_partition and then  
write the contents of the backup you just made to it. BE CAREFUL!  
Double check if you write to the correct partition.

> 3) Given all of this, is there any real hope for getting the full flash
> available on these routers for OpenWRT by default?

It depends on what you want to use it for. As far as I know, in the  
OEM firmware it can be used for additional user data storage. My  
suggestion would be to keep the existing partitions as they are and  
just mount the reserved data as additional partition (for instance  
under /srv or /var/<whatever>).

> Looks like this has been a question that has come up more than a few times
> - I referenced a thread in my original post but I found another issue from
> the tracker here: https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/17316. If it's not going
> to be possible, maybe a note in the wiki or something would be a good idea,
> so that there can be a final word on the question.
> PS: Is there a page in the wiki that clearly outlines what caldata is and
> its importance? I couldn't find it here:
> https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/techref/flash.layout
>
> Sorry for introducing the regression!
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